As we start to warm up for BOYL 2015, I started to wonder about the organisation of the thing. Up until now, it has been quite anarchic. I mean anarchic in the good sense of the term, in that various members have just dovetailed into each other's activities without requiring any 'controlled' (as applied by a 'controller') organisation.

Now the only real reason I've brought this up is that BOYL 2015 will be the 3rd event of its kind, suggesting that the thing is considered broadly successful. Given that it is considered this way, it is quite likely to see a much larger attendance than we've seen before - i.e. there is enough evidence from the previous two that it is worth the money and the time (now its three days!) to attend.

As such, it is appropriate to expect 100+ attendees.

So, my question to this community is simply this: as a result, does anybody think it requires more formal organisation? I have some opinions on the matter, but I thought I'd check with everyone else before tabling my own.

If you do think it requires more formal organisation, what should we do?

Discuss!

N.B. This is not a discussion where an answer MUST be reached or that we (whoever 'we' is) are looking to CHANGE anything - this is an abstracted discussion to get a feel from people about what kind of things that might require formalisation, the reasons as to why and the method as to how. Please (pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease) don't just respond with one liners saying something like 'yes, we should do something.' This is a DISCUSSION. I trust you all. No, really. Even you.

If, for whatever reason, no consensus is reached, I'm sure we'll just carry on as we do - I still trust our anarchic bent is entirely appropriate and so far has seemed to work. I just thought it was appropriate to ask. Also happy to ask the question this time next year (and every year thereafter).

EDIT - just thought I'd add that you are free to recommend something without becoming accountable for the thing you've recommended. Just because its something you want doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it - please make the recommendation anyway. Assuming anyone thinks we should do something different, I'll set up other threads to find interested parties.

Regards,Gaj

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Always interested in contacting any gamers interested in Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Edition!Also interested in any old 80's Citadel figures you may want to get rid of.

I think it workd just well at the size we were last year. Don't really know who many more people we should expect but the not too formal thing worked juts fine. People knew their games and tables and for the painting competition, just a good manly yell from Colin was enough to gather all the flock to the right place. Maybe all of this worked because the Foundry did an amazing job at providing everything we needed and that it was all thta was needed but I suppose more people will only need mores space (foo, drinks, tables, unreleased gift models) and not more organisation.

We are leaning toward a slightly more formal organization for the OHNW event this year....things seem to be growing and this year we will need to pay for a space so we are actually going to have to be a bit more organized this time.

I feel going more formal would be a good idea but might cause a few problems/headaches. This year will be the first year where we have 2 large separate Communities Collectives (Facebook and Forum) while there is a large crossover between them there is of course still those which only use 1 format of Oldhammer love.

How it would work organising both I have no idea but would indeed need to be inclucive

My only other experience of seeing something like this rise was the UK Steampunk Convivial in Lincoln. I was there the first year and it was small (still 300 or so but considering it was billed as a national event, small) but had a really good vibe. People who'd been talking on the forums meeting for the first time. Small bands playing and mingling with the public. It was great. The next year there were over 500 and it was still fun, a little more formalised but people were volunteering to run new things and it still felt fresh. The third year there were some changes, 800 plus attended and the thing was more structured but still felt like there was a good community vibe. The fourth and fifth years it grew to over 1000 attendees and the 'volunteer' events dropped away somewhat. leaving the event very 'samey'. It started to get a bit cliquey and it was difficult to mingle with people you didn't know. There was more emphasis on the trading and fewer fun activities being initiated. I'm not saying that the Asylum Convivial has gone wrong, just it has changed into something different from what it started as.

Now this is not to say that this is a pattern BOYL looks like following. It's not billed as a national event, it wouldn't suffer (I think) from people failing to volunteer to run games because that's what we go for. BUT I think there is a warning about being too formal and publicising too widely. Not least it becomes a real headache for all the organisers. The question is, do we want it to change in that way? Not least, would the Foundry host it if it were to increase any more? Facebook is a sure-fire way of spreading the word, but do we want the word spread too far?

Lots of questions, no solutions. Sorry! But keep up the good work organisers! BOYL has become my highlight of the year!

I suppose the issue is the numbers really. The way the Foundry is set up they can only handle so many cars for parking. The only other limit would be the space and number of tables. If everybody who is planning to organise and run a game gets the space and time to do so then it shouldn't be a hassle. We can handle loads of folk coming and going and looking at tables and games and standing around chatting but the difficulty comes when we are unsure of which table is booked for whcih game when. Last year I just rocked up and took over half a table but I'd imagine the more people that want to join in the harder that will be.

Personally i think it worked well last year so if it's a case of more of the same but bigger it's more of a logistics question for Foundry. I know they would appreciate some idea of numbers in order to determine catering needs etc so we should certainly try to keep a tally of bookings.

In terms of the logistics of the games played, again I think the "I'm putting this on who wants to play" approach seemed to work fine, but again I guess it helps if foundry have an idea of how many people need tables.

I think last year worked well. I certainly didn't encounter any problems other than signing myself up for too much. Speaking as someone who frequents the facebook group far more than the forum I still feel the forum should be the main site for organising things. Having the event details in two different places risks confusion.